Category I: Crossing the Divide Between Today's Practice and Tomorrow's Science

科学应用和用户界面的进步使先进的研究计算系统的可用性和可访问性民主化，使更广泛的研究人员能够追求更复杂问题的答案。此外，计算和数据密集型研究技术的进步被用于越来越多的领域，既作为主要的调查方法，也作为传统建模和模拟方法的补充。支撑这些进步的是许多研究应用的加速转变，从传统处理器转向现代计算机图形硬件中可用的大规模并行浮点处理器。位于伊利诺伊大学厄巴纳-香槟分校的国家超级计算应用中心（NCSA）将部署和运营Delta，这是一种先进的计算和数据资源，将捕捉技术和实践变化的本质，NCSA作为先进研究计算的全球领导者，其使命是促进人类的理解。Delta将通过部署现代接口（如科学网关和其他基于网络的接口）来提高先进计算资源的生产力和可用性，这些接口既可以提高可用性，又可以实时向研究人员提供结果。跨国家网络基础设施生态系统的联盟将使集成成为包括校园、国家和商业云资源在内的多站点工作流程的组成部分。NCSA将与科学网关社区研究所（SGCI）合作，实施科学网关基础设施，使广大社区的研究人员能够利用该系统的先进计算和数据分析能力。重要的发展将发生在评估和促进残疾人对Delta的可访问性，并在更广泛的研究计算和数据生态系统中传播这些进步。NCSA将在识别应用程序和研究团队方面发挥积极作用，这些应用程序和研究团队通过采用GPU计算具有最大的应用程序加速潜力，从而极大地扩展基于GPU的计算的采用，使其成为一种日益增长的规范，并为广泛的研究工作减少解决方案的时间。Delta系统将成为nsf资助的高级计算资源生态系统的独特补充，因为它将大量GPU能力与更传统的CPU处理能力平衡混合。利用下一代处理器架构和NVIDIA图形处理器的优势，Delta将在其发布时包括美国国家科学基金会产品组合中性能最高的GPU计算资源，其800多个图形处理器。Delta的计算单元将采用先进的网络互连，为每个计算节点提供至少每秒100千兆比特的带宽，用于应用程序通信和访问创新的存储环境。数据密集型研究将由一个近10 pb的高性能存储子系统加速，该子系统包含3 pb的基于闪存的松弛posix文件系统，NCSA将使用该系统来演示现代文件系统在提高数据密集型和高性能计算应用性能方面的有效性。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Advances in scientific applications and user interfaces have democratized the availability and accessibility of advanced research computing systems, allowing a broader range of researchers to pursue answers to ever more complex problems. Further, advances in computational and data-intensive research techniques are employed in a growing number of fields, both as primary methods of investigation and as complements to traditional modeling and simulation methods. Underpinning these advances is an accelerating shift in many research applications away from traditional processors to the vastly parallel floating-point processors available in modern computer graphics hardware. The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign will deploy and operate Delta, an advanced computing and data resource that will capture the essence of change in technology and practice that NCSA, as a global leader in advanced research computing, pursues in its mission to advance human understanding.Delta will advance the productivity and usability of advanced computing resources by deploying modern interfaces, such as science gateways and other web-based interfaces that will both improve usability and provide results to researchers in real-time. Federation across the national cyberinfrastructure ecosystem will enable integration as a component of multi-site workflows that include campus, national, and commercial cloud resources. NCSA will partner with the Science Gateways Community Institute (SGCI) to implement the science gateway infrastructure that will enable broad communities of researchers to take advantage of the advanced computing and data analytics capabilities of the system. Significant development will take place to evaluate and advance the accessibility of Delta by individuals with disabilities and to disseminate these advances throughout the broader research computing and data ecosystem. NCSA will take an active role in identifying applications and research teams that have the greatest potential for application acceleration through the adoption of GPU computing, thus greatly expanding the adoption of GPU-based computing as a growing norm and reducing time-to-solution for a broad range of research endeavors.The Delta system will be a unique addition to the NSF-funded ecosystem of advanced computing resources due to its balanced mixture of a substantial GPU capability alongside more traditional CPU processing capabilities. Taking advantage of next-generation processor architectures and NVIDIA graphics processors, Delta will include what will be, at its launch, the most performant GPU computing resource in the National Science Foundation portfolio with its 800+ graphics processors.The compute elements of Delta will employ an advanced network interconnect, delivering at least 100 gigabits per second of bandwidth to each compute node for application communications and access to an innovative storage environment. Data-intensive research will be accelerated by a nearly 10 petabyte high-performance storage subsystem, which incorporates three petabytes of flash-based, relaxed-POSIX file system which NCSA will use to demonstrate the effectiveness of modern file systems in advancing the performance of data-intensive and high-performance computing applications.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.